What a start to the endurance season!

Kudos to Ben Dillingham, without his mechanical efforts and attention to detail, we wouldn't have made it past the first hour.

Our first rider, Todd Telkamp got the team off to a great start by holding 5^th spot overall for the first half hour. At that point, a red flag stopped the race and he brought the bike in to check it over. Ben found a leaky rear wheel. Without a backup wheel ready, we sent Don to ride and he rode as well only to have another red flag 15 minutes later. Perfect! He brought the bike in on a second red flag, and we seized that opportunity to exchange the leaky tire with the one we'd prepped in the meantime. Don regridded and we were back on track. First lap, he held 5^th place overall and never let go of that position.

We switched riders at the hour and 45 minute mark and I took my place on the bike. I held status quo but noticed the bike wasn't working well:  the tire was bothersome (we went from a slick to a DOT which wasnt going to make the 4 hours easy), also the transmission was giving us grief. It took 3 or 4 attempts to shift into any gears, up or down. But we held our place in the race. We held 4^th or 5^th overall and were leading our class.

Todd got back on the bike after me. I felt like Id done a horrible job:  the bike didn't feel like it was working very well, but Todd's times were 5 seconds off of his morning stint so I knew it was the bike and not the rider. Todd rode it to the 3 hour and 50 minute mark and brought it in for a quick fuel stop.  A smart decision on his part as the fuel level after the race was low even with the refuel - he wouldnt have finished the race without that stop.

At the end we were first in middleweight and 3^rd overall (43 teams total!!).  I'm looking forward to more races:  the next one is the 8 hour endurance in Spokane (Sept. 27^th & 28^th). That will give me enough time to rebuild the engine as there wasn't much left of it after this winning race.  The transmission was shot and it took part of the motor with it!!  We were lucky it carried us through the 4 hours of abuse.  Stay tuned!!